Gateless Gate 19

43
Gateless Gate (Mumonkan, Wumenguan) #19
Dogen's 300 #19
Ordinary Mind is the Way

Personnel and Date

• NANQUAN Puyuan (Nansen Fugan, 748-835, 9th gen), disciple of Mazu (709–788).
• ZHAOZHOU Congshen (Joshu Jushin, 778-897, 10th gen), disciple of Nanquan (748-835)
Date guess: ca. 798

Case

Zhaozhou earnestly asked Nanquan, “What is the Way [the Dao]?”
Nanquan said, “The ordinary mind is the Way.”
Zhaozhou said, “Should I direct myself toward it or not?”
Nanquan said, “If you try to turn toward it, you go against it.”
Zhaozhou said, “If I do not try to turn toward it, how can I know that it is the Way?”
Nanquan said, “The Way does not belong to knowing or not-knowing. Knowing is delusion; not-knowing is a blank consciousness. When you have really reached the true Way beyond all doubt, you will find it as vast and boundless as the great empty firmament. How can it be talked about on a level of right and wrong?”
At these words, Zhaozhou was suddenly enlightened.

Wumen's Comment

Nanquan was asked a question by Zhaozhou, and Nanquan's base was shattered and melted away. He could not justify himself. Even though Zhaozhou has coJoshu asked Nansen, "What is the Way?" Nansen answered, "Ordinary mind is the Way." "How do you get on to it?" "The more you try to get on to it, the more you push it away." "How do you know you are on the Way?" "The Way has nothing to do with knowledge, but iot is not not-knowing. Knowledge is illusory, not-knowing, lack of discrimination. It is like vast space. Where is there room for this and that, is and is not?"me to realization, he will have to delve into it for another thirty years before he can realize it fully.

Wumen's Verse

The spring flowers, the moon in autumn,
The cool breezes of summer, the winter's snow;
If idle concerns do not cloud the mind,
This is a person's happiest season.

Old Zen Poem (Aitken)

What our eyes see is "ordinary":
it does not frighten people,
but it always remains
like the moonlight on the chilled window;
even at midnight it shines on thatched cottages.

Confucius' Verse (Yamada)

The Way is at hand, but people are looking for it afar;
Farmers are using it every day without being aware of it.
We cannot be separated from the Way even for an instant;
What we can be separated from is not the Way.

Hakuin's Comment

I do not like such grandmotherly mildness. He ought to beat Zhaozhou severely, without a word.

Aitken's Comment

This constant "ordinary" is not the commonplace mind of self-centered preoccupation. Selfish conduct, speech, and thought obscure the vast, moonlit mind of Nanquan. Nanquan is pointing to transformation here. Standing up before realization is the same as standing up after, yet they are not the same. Once you find intimacy with vast emptiness -- the genuine Dao -- your act of standing will be the act of the entire universe standing. And in the same act you will be standing alone. The Dao is not to be found simply in your relative world of trying and not trying, knowing and not knowing, attaining and not attaining. To direct yourself toward something is to postulate attainment. Postulation thus replaces attainment -- and true attainment is out the window. You are left clinging to something conjectural.

Jingshan's Comment

(Cleary) The ancient spilled his guts all at once. The sky-scraping falcon should take advantage of the time; the tired fish resting in the shallows wastes the effort to stir up waves.

Fojian's Verse (Cleary)

If you want to know the normal Way,
Trust nature spontaneously.
When you row a boat, you need to raise the oars;
When you ride a horse, you apply the crop.
If you get hungry, obtain some food;
And you should sleep when tired.
All is attained through conditions,
Yet what is attained is not a condition.

Gushan's Verse (Cleary)

If you think the normal mind is the Way,
You produce more ramifications on top of ramifications.
If you have taken off the sweaty shirt sticking to your flesh,
Given a call you find eyebrows atop your eyes.

Cleary's Comment

Dogen lamented the degeneration of Zen stemming from misunderstanding the expression "normal mind" or the saying "this mind is Buddha" to mean the ordinary mentality with its conditioned habits of thought. Once you recover the unconditioned consciousness of the pristine normal mind, then you turn from spontaneous absorption in the unity of suchness to precise awareness of the differentiations within suchness, so that you may be "not blind to causality." After realizing the timeless absolute, you return to the temporal world.

Guo Gu's Comment

The key to Chan practice is to drop the colored glasses through which you mistakenly perceive the world — it’s not about picking up a better pair of glasses or polishing them to make them shiny. Thus practice does not produce the freedom you already have. It merely removes the obscurations.
The dao (way) refers to (1) a path to walk on, and to (2) the order of things, the way things are. Zhaozhou and Nanquan are using "dao" in both these senses. The way things are is the path one should walk on.
Practice does not produce awakening. Cultivation will not lead you to the way. Practice is like cleaning furniture or putting it in order. If you get caught up with cleaning or moving furniture around, then it’s not so helpful — you probably cause many people in the room vexations. If you clean knowing that furniture does not obstruct space, clean just to clean, then it is helpful for all who use the room. This is not to say, “Oh, since everything is originally fine whether I clean the room or not, why bother cleaning?” No. That is also wrong. You have to clean. Yet irrespective of clean or dirty, pure or impure, if you genuinely have no doubt whatsoever as to your true nature, then you are free, already pure. There are no obstructions. This is the “ordinary mind.” Practice is not about gaining freedom but about realizing what obstructs you. The Chan way is to completely immerse in the world and not be obstructed by it. This is because the obstructions are nonexistent — they belong to the fantasy world you construct. “It is vast like open space, through and through”: All of the teachings are merely pointers that you may uncover your intrinsic, original freedom. When you are freed, all things are free. This ordinary mind is a mind or heart without judgment, discriminating thinking, prejudice, vexations. So ordinary that it is the most normal way of being.

Low's Comment

Spiritual work comes out of a need for the truth. We all know the truth because we are the truth. Indeed, it is because we are the truth that we seek the truth, it is because we are one and whole that we seek unity. Our problem is we have turned our back on the truth to search for its reflection in experience. But even though we have turned our back on it, the truth is always there. To find it, we have to let go of reflections and turn around. Striving after awakening, putting effort into our practice, being part of a spiritual team that is really going places, all this builds wonderful buffers. The Way is to see these buffers for what they are. It is to live in the moment, to be where one is, and not wish to move from that spot. The key to practice is honesty, and yet if one is honest one knows how difficult it is to be honest. And if one is honest, one knows one is striving to be special, unique, and that by fair means or foul one must rise above, transcend, go beyond, ordinary mind. The suffering of practice is to surrender this wish and to face whatever the wish has been hiding.

Sekida's Comment

Children are in samadhi in their play, work, and daily routine. Animals, plants, and minerals are also in samadhi, in their way. The adult alone has lost samadhi. If he can only rid himself of the deluded way of thinking of ordinary consciousness, he can act like a child, whose mental condition we call innocent. In short, innocence is ordinary mind. When you are innocent, your internal pressure is in a state of equilibrium, and that is the condition of ordinary mind. In your daily life, you often enter a well-balanced, harmonious state of mind, for instance, when cooking, working in the garden, even getting up in the morning, putting on your clothes, going downstairs, or fastening your shoelaces. If only you could do these things in positive samadhi! ordinary mind is realized in your samadhi, and that is the way of peace of mind.

Senzaki's Comment

A fish does not recognize water, but has much to do with it. If a fish is conscious of the water, the fish will not be happy in it. Forgetting the water and living in it -- this is the secret of a happy life.

Shibayama's Comment

Dao has characteristically Chinese connotations. Here it can be taken to mean "the fundamental Truth in Zen" or "the essence of Zen." "Ordinary mind is Dao." Literally, it means, "Everyday mind as it is without any discrimination is Dao." We have to transcend our ordinary mind to attain the true ordinary mind, and in order actually to transcend our dualistic ordinary mind, sincere searching and hard discipline are required. When we have broken through the barrier where our ordinary mind is not at all ordinary mind, we can for the first time return to our original ordinary mind. The seeking mind itself is already the sought-after Dao. If we try to know it, it turns out to be a relativistic objective and ceases to be the Reality. What is known is only a conceptual shadow of the Reality. If, however, it is not known at all, it is only a dead blankness. Cast away all the discriminating consciousness and attain to the Dao of no-doubt. It will then be like the great void, so vast and boundless. There is no room for discrimination to enter here. The ordinary mind Zen upholds is not our dualistic ordinary mind, but it has to be the ordinary mind attained by satori.

Yamada's Comment

Ordinary mind, what is that? It is nothing but our ordinary consciousness, our ordinary everyday life. It is just getting up, washing your face, eating breakfast, going to work, walking, running, laughing, crying; the leaves on the trees, the flowers in the field, whether white, red, or purple; it is birth, it is death. That is the Way. We do not even have to use the word "mind." The ordinary is the Way! When you are truly one with something, you are one with yourself. We find Dogen giving us this teaching in his Fukanzazengi: "Stop the activities of mind-consciousness. Stop thinking in concepts and ideas, and cease desiring to become Buddha."

Original meaning of 'normcore'

finding liberation in being nothing special

Daido Loori's Comment (Dogen's 300)

Ordinary mind is perfect and complete. It is self-contained and self-fulfilling and is its own accomplishment. Since it existed before the kalpa of emptiness, it cannot be attained. Since it transcends time and space, it is always in the eternal present. This ordinary minbd is the dharma of each moment of existence -- it has no before or after.

Daido's Interjections

Zhaozhou asked Nanquan, "What is the Way?"
     (What is he saying? He seems to be asleep.)
Nanquan siad, "Ordinary mind is the Way."
     (Only one on the path would be able to respond.)
Zhaozhou said, "Shall I try to direct myself toward it?"
     (As it turns out, he misunderstands.)
Nanquan said, "If you try to direct yourself toward it, you will move away from it."
     (Why is he being so kind? Let Zhaozhou go chasing his tail for the rest of his life.)
Zhaozhou said, "If I don't try, how will I know it's the Way?"
     (Now his is nostril deep in complications.)
Nanquan said, "The Way is not concerned with knowing or not knowing."
     (Without a bit of hesitation, he leaps into the mud pit.)
"Knowing is illusion;"
     (What is he doing? He's trying to explain the dharma.)
"not knowing is blank consciousness."
     (Where is all this leading?)
"If you truly arrive at the Great Way of no trying, it will be like great emptiness, vast and clear. How can we speak of it in terms of affirming or negating?"
     (Bah! The old monastic talks too much.)
Zhaozhou immediately realized the profound teaching.
     (What is it that he realized?)

Daido's Verse

The enlightened and the deluded all live in its presence.
Move toward it, and the sickness is increased.
Describe it,
and you miss its reality.

Hotetsu's Verse

To a mind simultaneously ordinary and boggled
The world's very banality is its profound, wondrous mystery.
Only let the unnecessary fall away --
By attending to its necessity.

Illustration at top by Mark Morse

Appendix: Alternate Translations

Case

Zhaozhou earnestly asked Nanquan, “What is the Way [the Dao]?” Nanquan said, “The ordinary mind is the Way.” Zhaozhou said, “Should I direct myself toward it or not?” Nanquan said, “If you try to turn toward it, you go against it.” Zhaozhou said, “If I do not try to turn toward it, how can I know that it is the Way?” Nanquan said, “The Way does not belong to knowing or not-knowing. Knowing is delusion; not-knowing is a blank consciousness. When you have really reached the true Way beyond all doubt, you will find it as vast and boundless as the great empty firmament. How can it be talked about on a level of right and wrong?” At these words, Zhaozhou was suddenly enlightened.

Aitken: Chao-chou asked Nan-ch'uan, “What is the Way the Tao?” Nan-ch'uan said, “Ordinary mind is the Tao.” Chao-chou asked, “Should I try to direct myself toward it?” Nan-ch'uan said, “If you try to direct yourself you betray your own practice." Chao-chou asked, “How can I know the Tao if I don't direct myself?” Nan-ch'uan said, “The Tao is not subject to knowing or not knowing. Knowing is delusion; not-knowing is blankness. If you truly reach the genuine Tao, you will find it as vast and boundless as outer space. How an this be discussed at the level of affirmation and negation?” With these words, Chao-chou had sudden realization.

Cleary: Zhaozhou asked Nanquan, "What is the Way?" Nanquan said, "The normal mind is the Way." Zhaozhou asked, "Can it be approached deliberately?" Nanquan said, "If you try to aim for it, you thereby turn away from it." Zhaozhou said, "If one does not try, how can one know it is the Way?" Nanquan said, "The Way is not in the province of knowledge, yet not in the province of unknowing. Knowledge is false consciousness, unknowing is indifference. If you really arrive at the inimitable Way, it is like space, empty and open; how can you insist on affirmation and denial?" At these words, Zhaozhou was suddenly enlightened.

Guo Gu: When Zhaozhou asked Nanquan, "What is the way?" Nanquan said, "The ordinary mind is the way." Zhaozhou asked, "Can one strive for it or not?" Nanquan said, "When you strive for it, it recedes." Zhaozhou said, "If we don't try, how do we know it is the way?" Nanquan said, "The way is not something known or unknown. Knowing is false perception. Not knowing is just being oblivious. If you truly arrived on way that is free from doubt, you would realize that it is vast like open space, through and through. How is it possible to impose affirmation and denial?" At these words, Zhaozhou was suddenly awakened.

Hinton: Visitation-Land asked Wellspring-South Mountain: "What is Way?" "Ordinary mind is Way," answered Master Wellspring. "Still, it's something I can set out toward, isn't it?" "To set out is to be distant from." "But if I don't set out, how will I arrive at an understanding of Way?" "Way isn't something you can understand, and it isn't something you can not understand. Understanding is delusion, and not understanding is pure forgetfulness. If you truly comprehend this Way that never sets out for somewhere else, if you enter into it absolutely, you realize it's exactly like the vast expanses of this universe, all generative emptiness you can see through into boundless clarity. Now, how can you force that into coherence with the logic of yes-this no-that?" Hearing these words, Land was suddenly awakened.

Low: Joshu asked Nansen, "What is the Way?" Nansen answered, "Ordinary mind is the Way." "How do you get on to it?" "The more you try to get on to it, the more you push it away." "How do you know you are on the Way?" "The Way has nothing to do with knowledge, but iot is not not-knowing. Knowledge is illusory, not-knowing, lack of discrimination. It is like vast space. Where is there room for this and that, is and is not?" Upon this Joshu came to sudden awakening.

Sekida: Joshu asked Nansen, "What is the Way?" "Ordinary mind is the Way," Nansen replied. "Shall I try to seek after it" Joshu asked. "If you try for it, you will become separated from it," responded Nansen. "How can I know the Way unless I try for it?" persisted Joshu. Nansen said, "The Way is not a matter of knowing or not knowing. Knowing is delusion; not knowing is confusion. When you have really reached the true Way beyond doubt, you will find it as vast and boundless as outer space. How can it be talked about on the level of right and wrong?" With these words, Joshu came to a sudden realization.

Senzaki: Joshu asked Nansen, "What is the Path?" Nansen said, "Everyday life is the Path." Joshu asked, "Can it be studied?" Nansen said, "If you try to study it, you will be far away from it." Joshu asked, "If I do not study it, how can I know it is the Path?" Nansen replied, "The Path does not belong to the world of knowing, nor does it belong to the world of not-knowing. Knowing is delusion and not-knowing is confusion. If you want to reach the true Path beyond doubt, place yourself within the same freedom as that of the sky. How can it be called good or not-good?" At these words Joshu was enlightened.

Shibayama: Joshu once asked Nansen, "What is Tao?" Nansen answered, "Ordinary mind is Tao." "Then should we direct ourselves toward it or not?" asked Joshu. "If you try to direct yourself toward it, you go away from it," answered Nansen. Joshu continued, "If we do not try, how can we know that it is Tao?" Nansen replied, "Tao does not belong to knowing or to not-knowing. Knowing is illusion; not-knowing is blankness. If you really attain to Tao of no-boubt, it is like the great void, so vast and boundless. How, then, can there be right and wrong in the Tao?" At these words, Joshu was suddenly enlightened.

Verse

The spring flowers, the moon in autumn, /The cool breezes of summer, the winter's snow; /If idle concerns do not cloud the mind, /This is a person's happiest season.

Aitken: Spring comes with flowers, autumn with the moon, /summer with breeze, winter with snow. /When idle concerns don't hang in your mind, /that is your best season.

Cleary: In spring there are a hundred flowers, in autumn there is the moon; /In summer there are cool breezes, in winter there is snow. /If no idle matters hang on your mind, /Then it is a good season in the human world.

Guo Gu: In spring there are hundreds of flowers. In autumn there is the moon. /In summer there are cool breezes. In winter there is snow. /If there were no hang-ups with triviality, /Such would be the most splendid season.

Hinton: Spring flaunts a hundred blossoms, autumn a moon; summer brings cool breezes, winter soundless snow. /Absence and its operations all idleness held in mind: here among humankind, isn't that the perfect season?

Low: In spring, the flowers; /In summer, cool breezes; /In autumn, the moon; /The snow in winter. /If the mind is not clouded by unnecessary things, /This day is a happy day in human life."

Sekida: The spring flowers, the autumn moon; /Summer breezes, winter snow. /If useless things do not clutter your mind/ You have the best days of your life.

Senzaki: In spring, hundreds of flowers; in autumn, a harvest moon; /In summer, a refreshing breeze; in winter, snowflakes accompany you. /If useless things do not clutter your mind, /Every season is a good season for you.

Shibayama: Hundreds of flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, /A cool breeze in summer, and snow in winter; /If there is not vain cloud in your mind /For you it is a good season.